We are off from Sofia early in the morning, trying to get there before the spring sun softens the snow too much. An hour and a half later we are at the base of the mountain, the sun is harsh and the sky is cloudless. Worried that we are already late we jump in the boots and head out fast. But even if we are really late there are no worries – as long as we are in the mountain everything is fine. It is mid April, but there is a lot of snow and we can choose every slope we like. A strong group of three four-legged friends joins us – Sharo and Murjo ahead with the German Sheppard Sarah – the most famous local free rider.

Thirty minutes later we reach Maliovitsa hut. We give us some time in the toilet to do the things we could not do in the hurry back home, share some jokes with Bajno – the hut manager, who is again cursing the vast amounts of snow this winter and then head to BAK Refugio – given the icy west-facing slopes we choose a longer but easier road, which would give us one more slope to ski on.

The previous days there has been a lot of rain, the night has been cold and the snow is like concrete. We reach Vtora terasa easily, but then we start climbing on the west facing slope leading to BAK. The climb is very icy and scatchy, we manage to make a few turns with the skis on, but suddenly, the malfunctioning binding of Kofeto’s skis snap out and he, with one of his skis, finds himself at the base of the slope in just a few seconds. I am scared as shit not to share the same destiny, but with the power of a great will and concentration I manage to  reach a safe place. Kofeto has already found his ski and cursing heavily climbs up on boots. The dogs seem to have no problems with the ice – the crampon-like nails and the great mountain experience help them climb up effortlessly.

Kofeto is doing technical serpentine on ice.

“Survived!” he says just before the long bum ride down….

Kofeto: “!?#%**F*CK!!?#% bindings!”

After the first critical slope I also jump out of the skis and head up on boots only. The dogs are happily barking around, wondering what takes us so long. Watching the dogs following us up in the mountain I keep asking myself what makes them come with us every time we are there, when we never bring food for them. Do they enjoy the walk, do they like our company? Anyway, I say to myself, next time I will bring a nice treat for you, my friends.

Sara is bored.

Sharo: “While we are waiting for those two, why don’t you let me sniff your ass?”

Shortly after we reach BAK and then climb up to the pass between peak Kamilata and peak Lovnica. The dogs are running around, climbing the rocks and sniffing for wild goats. The Sahara sands, brought by the last snowfalls have colored the snow in yellow and the rain has shaped strange forms in the slopes on its way down. We are about to have a ride down on a softened east facing slope but before that we give ourselves a few minutes, trying to capture the beauty around with our cameras.

Now that we are though with photography we buckle up for our first ride for the day. And the ride is quite awkward – starts with hard icy snow with big hard snow lumps and then suddenly transfers to soft, sticky snow. A few minutes later we find ourselves at the base of our objective for the day – peak Goliam Kupen.

After a few moments of hesitation which way to choose for the ascent we decide to attack the peak through the same couloir we intend to descent and check out its condition. We take off our skis and continue on boots almost right away, regretting that we have no crampons with us. Every step up needs a few hard kicks to go through the icy snow. At the middle of the climb our legs are screaming with pain and we slowly realize that this would not be our way down unless we wait at the peak for another 2-3 hours. The dogs are still with us, but this time it is hard even for them. Sharo and Murjo are strictly following behind using the steps we dug out. Only Sara, the German Shepard, chooses its own line. Is it because she is stupid or something else, I don’t know, but she goes for the steepest, iciest, and narrowest couloir above us, scratching her way up and risking a massive slide down through the rocks, possibly taking one of us with her. Very critical climb up indeed, but somehow she manages to survive and reach a safe place.

An hour later we reach the top. There we treat ourselves with a deserved brake under the warm sun and a light breeze. Astonishing views are all around. Thousands of virgin lines are surrounding us, which all become dreamed projects. We stare at the rocks with numerous routes, where the climbing season will take us once the snow is gone. We take out our cameras again and concentrate in our viewfinders trying to take the perfect photo. Sara finds a piece of rock to play with, Sharo falls asleep under the sun and Murjo sits nearby, keeping an eye on me and waiting to hear the promising sound of a food packing. This reminds me that I have two chocolate bars with me, but I am not hungry so I decide to give one to the brave dogs. The other I leave for myself when we reach the base.

A bit more photo shoot and we decide to take the east face down. Looks soft enough and we head to the entry which starts with a 1.5m drop. Kofeto decides to take the drop and I leave behind to take some pictures. Off he goes with the dogs, jumps down… his binding snaps out again, he falls down, but luckily the ski stays with him. It takes him a few seconds to recover and continues the ride down. I choose the left entry with the smaller drop and after a few minutes of indescribable joy we join again 500 veritcal meters down at the frozen lake Strashnoto ezero. From that point we have a long and easy ride and 30 minutes later we are at the car parking.

Here is the line we climbed up and the line we should have skied down. Well, not this time, may be next season. Or may be these days we would try again? The season is not over yet.

Five left, five are back. We are all happy, only not sure about the dogs, because they refuse to speak, but by the intense waving of their tails I guess they are happy too. To be sure they are I give them my other chocolate bar. I am hungry too, but there is a heavy meal waiting for me downtown.

Yet another perfect day.

A few weeks ago Nikola Levakov and Martin Marovski put up (ground-up) a new route at Vratsa, Ivan Vasov massif. It has two pitches and is equipped with bolts and pytons. The route was possible for free ascent, but was beyond the powers of the two equippers. Someone had to take the task and make the first free ascent.

Emiliyan Kolevski is a hard boulderer and sport climber, who frequently climbs hard multipitch routes and grabs their FFA. So, naturaly, he was interested in the route. He tried it, shortly after the boulting, giving it a grade of 7c, but could not do it in a day and left it for a while. Now that he came back from a two week trip to Siurana, he attacked Ela i me vzemi feeling stronger and motivated.

Emiliyan (Emo) called me if I was interested to go with him while trying the route again and take some photos of the ascent. Naturally I accepted and here we were on our way to Vratsa. We left Sofia at noon because Emo need the shade to come over the rocks to improve the friction of the tiny holds. At 2pm we were under the route when he warmed up on the right standing route Ivan Vazov and put up a 80 m rope for me to climb on with the photo gear.

An hour later, the shade had fallen, I was high on the rope and Emo started the climb. The first pitch was an easy 6b+ and it needed no attention. The second pitch started with a right away with an overhanging 6C boulder crux, followed by a rest and a resistant technical climb to the top, no rests and hard clips. The line followed two tiny groves with small holds and awkward betа sequence. Seeing the line and the chalkless holds I was pretty confident that Emo will not be able to send it first go for the day, which would give me the chance to photograph the route from different angles. Well, Emo was in a better shape than i thought. Lucky for him (not for me) he sent it without hesitation and with obvious ease.

Damn…

This winter we skied a lot, as it was our last winter (may be it is, you never know when a world is coming to an end). It was so good, that I did not want to make any photos, I wanted to enjoy skiing on the max. Plus, it was storm day (almost) every day – good for powder, not good for photos. However, as the spring has come and there are more sunny days and breathtaking views in the mountain I could not resist taking my camera with me and spend some time taking pictures of the beauty surrounding me and the skiers ripping the slopes.

Below there are a few galleries from my resent ski touring days. The first is from the ski descent from Deno peak (2790m) in the Musala range, Rila mountain. We were headed first to peak Irechek, but the snow conditions of its north-east slope would not offer safe and good skiing down, so we decided to head to peak Deno and see how it is on its north face. After a 3 hour tour to the peak we found ourselves at the top of an amazingly looking 40-45 degree face, ending with a short couloir next to a frozen lake. The face was followed by a long but easy slope and a total denivelation of about 1000 m.  The descent was truly marvelous resulting in big smiles on our faces. Unfortunately I had to concentrate on the skiing and could not make any photos of the downhill but there are some pictures of the approach.

The next gallery is from a ski tout between peak Mechit and peak Lopushki. We started from Mechit hut, climbing to peak Mechit followed by a long traverse through two smaller no-name peaks. Our primary goal was to climb to peak Lopushki and ski down on it’s north face. The weather was quite unsustainable and shortly before climbing to the top the fog shut us down. That forced us to stop the ascent and wait for a window to show us the right direction down as it was a quite sketchy slope with big cliffs on the right and a wrong valley to go on the left. Luckily we managed to see our way in a short 10 sec window and headed down fast.

The next day we headed to Malyovitsa valley, which offers many peaks, slopes and couloirs. There was stable weather, excellent conditions and a good company. I will leave the photos to speak for themselves.

The season is not over yet, there is more to come. Stay tuned.

Due to the dry autumn and the early winter the ice conditions were not very good leaving the organizers with no choice but to put up the final route only on dry rock. The semifinals were partly on ice, but these are not very spectacular as a rule so I did not take much photos of the competitors climbing the semis. The organizers made their best to make this a strong and interesting event as usual doing great job with the routes. There were not many spectators but the motivated competitors made a really nice and friendly atmosphere.

The weather was quite unstable, clear in the morning, but with some fog just before the finals. I was really concerned that the fog would interrupt the shooting but luckily, with the first finalist starting on the route it disappeared miraculously. Still there was low light just enough to make me pump up the ISO and shoot at lower speeds, but it was what it was. I had to deal it whether I liked it or not.

Probably one of the photos of the only female competitor Radka Petkova will make it to the next Rock Divas calendar for 2013 (well, if the world is still here)

Bellow are the photos, enjoy them and feel free to comment.

Follow these links if you wish to see the photos from the Ice Climbing Competitions from 2011 and 2012:

Ice Climbing Competition 2012

Ice Climbing Competition 2011

Thanks to the Bulgarian Climbing and Alpine Federation, to the organizers from PIK 3000 (the importer of Petzl and Beal for Bulgaria) and to the main sponsor Spotcheto (importer of Marmot for Bulgaria)

The calendar has twelve inside pages and two covers, the size is 34х48 cm. On each page there is a different photo 27×34 cm, and the rest of the space is for the calendar itself. Unlike previous years I have left more space on each page for the days of the month in order to increase the usefulness of the calendar. Now there is more room for you to put your notes, mark the important dates or write down important stuff.

The Rock Divas Calendar 2012 has its emphases is on the climbing girl’s beauty. It is not about the grade, it is not about the fame.  All that matters for me as a climbing photographer is to capture the moments that make our sport so spectacular. Some of these moments are when a beautiful girl is climbing a beautiful line, no matter the grade or the ascent.

Have you asked your self why are you so in love with climbing? I am sure there are many reasons, but on the pages of the Rock Divas climbing calendar you will find at least twelve of them. Here I am sharing with you my passion and the way I see it through the lens of my camera.

Thea beauty is all around us and it will save the world.

This years logo on the calendar is of King Kong climbing walls – a UK based climbing wall and climbing holds manufacturer.

The Rock Divas Calendar 2012 is on sale in the UK, France and Bulgaria.

For the UK – King Kong climbing walls

For France – JeGrimpe.com

For Bulgaria – climbingguidebg.com, ekipirovka.com, stenata.com, namaste-bg.com, alpibg.com, varhove.com, NSA climbing wall, Gravity climbing wall, Sofia University climbing wall

Indeed I had a wonderful time climbing, hanging around, swimming, and mud fighting with my friends. It hasn’t been so much joy for me in years. Too bad that I had to go back to Sofia so soon and couldn’t stay for another 5 days. Anyway, a nice vacation – check!

Objective 2 – hunting for photos. My main goal was to find one or two locations where a nice female climber could be photographed so I could have at least one photo suitable for the next Climbing calendar. This year it will be girls only as in 2010, so it was girls only I was after.

First I found a small beautiful cave which had a route going through its arch. The route caught my eye and luckily it was under attack by a few girls, trying to redpoint it. It was easy for photographing as it did not require any rope access, all I had to do was to adjust my strobes and get the best ratio between artificial and natural light. The cave was rather dark and if I wanted to shoot with only natural light it would mean to bump up the ISO and risk to have too grainy photos. So I asked Kristina – a young photographer, to assist me in positioning and adjusting the strobes, made a few test shots and I was ready for action. There were two girls willing to climb in front of the camera for the photos – Silviya and Elka, both strong and beautiful climbers.

I love Elka’s photos. But they don’t carry the spirit of the deep water soloing that I wanted to capture, there was no action in them, and Elka looked more like a super model that was somehow stuck to the rock, posing for the photos, rather than a climber struggling with the route. Even if the photos satisfy me technically and Elka looks hot and beautiful I regret to say that her photos would not make it to the calendar for 2012. However Silviya’s photos are exactly what I needed. The girl was climbing hard, fighting with the rock and this time I think I managed to capture the action, the drama in her climb. So, what I had as a result was exactly what I was looking for. See for yourself in the following gallery.

The next day another route was under siege by the girls – one of the most climbed and the most beautiful routes there – Mazniana, graded 7b. There I got photos of Elka, Ida and Genoveva. Beautiful girls on a beautiful route – my task was too easy, all I had to do is hit the trigger for some great photos. One of those shots is very likely to make it to the calendar, I am yet to decide which one exactly. Anyway, nice photos of girls climbing – check!

Some of the next photos are with guys climbing, others are with girls again, but they all lacked something and won’t make it to the calendar. Most of them have everything – composition, drama, action, surrounding, a beautiful girl climbing, but they all lack a visible face of the climber. Some of those photos would have been my first choice for a calendar photo if they had the girl’s face, but since they don’t I can’t put them in the calendar. See for yourself.

I will start chronologically. Last autumn I made an interesting series of photos in Karlukovo cave – an impressive natural phenomenon with amazing climbing on it. For those of you who are familiar with the place words are unnecessary. For the rest – go check it out, you won’t regret it.

Bellow is a gallery with photos of a route called Obama 8b (with Emilian Kolevski, Yavor Panov and Nikola Petrov), Married With Children, project, (with Emilian Kolevski) and Varna 7b (with Nelly Chukurlieva). There is no special story around the shootouts so I will leave the photos to speak for themselves.

The next gallery is with photos for a short climbing trip in Greece. For a week I visited a small crag near Athens with beautiful limestone shapes. I don’t really remember the route names, but the climbers are Nelly Chukurlieva, Raina Grigorova and Yavor Panov. Some lifestyle images as well.

Following is a gallery with photos from Komini, Veliko Turnovo and Vratsa. The climbers are Ivo Ninov, Elka Serafimova, Julian Stoichkov and Raina Grigorova.

Well, that’s all folks! But just for now. Very soon I will publish some DWS photos, so stay tuned.

This time the goal of the video is to promote the program for remote education. The idea for the shots was to include more people, more close-ups and to recreate different situations where the remote education could be successful and necessary – to show that this type of education can help one to stay in his family environment, to keep his daily routine and to adjust the process of learning according to his spare time.

The scenarios for the first video was not of my concern and I had to shoot at whatever I was told. For the second video though the scenario was my responsibility. The NBU guys gave me just some key words for the different scenes and I had to think of the actual scenes and the shooting locations. This made the task much harder but also much more interesting. Once again I had the full creative freedom to choose my angle, light and details and I had the chance to make the video the way I see it and to unleash all my imagination. This made the assignment one of the best I have ever done. For that I’d like to thank to my client.

For the video shooting I used again Nikon D300s and a tripod but this time I decided to use an additional gadget – for some of the scenes I used a slider dolly which I think gave the video a big quality boost.

There is nothing more that I can share apart form that the job took me one shooting day and one editing day. It was an easy and pleasant task, mostly because of the people I had the pleasure to work with. Thank you guys.

Here is the video:

Remote eduncation in New Bulgarian University

I’m not into video very much, my passion is still photography so when I was first contacted for this assignment I said “no”. I few days later after having some thoughts over it and sharing them with my friend Todor Zuboff (may thanks about the tips and the simple ideas that turned out to be great) I decided to expand my horizons and take the challenge.

Luckily when I called back the video assignment was still free. I had a very friendly and productive meeting with the NBU guys where they showed me their ideas and vision about the video. It looked like an easy and pleasant task to do plus the challenge to create a video, so it wasn’t hard for me to turn into psyche mode and head into the job with great passion.

The idea was for a 30 seconds video that would be published on websites and local cable networks (won’t be on air nationally unfortunately). So the challenge was to film 7-8 scenes, 3-4 seconds each, where there should be enough information so the viewer can comprehend easily and get the idea. On each scene there was to be a short text that would motivate young people to choose this university and make them recognize themselves in such a friendly environment that the university offers. My task was to only shoot and edit the video and I didn’t have to deal with text and scenario. I was told which locations to shoot at, but I had the creative freedom to choose my angle, light and details. For that I’d like to thank the NBU guys for letting me be creative and imply my vision, instead of being pretentious and having tons of crazy ideas that would make the final result look like a home video.

For the video shooting I used a Nikon D300s and a tripod. Just that. The budget was very limited and there was no time nor room for any cranes, camera stabilizing systems or any other special equipment. The idea was “make it fast, keep it simple” and so is my credo. I like this style of work where with minimum resources you can have maximum result.

It took me half a day to go around the university and shoot the scenes I had to. Then it took me two working days in total to make the editing and fine tuning so client would be absolutely happy with the final video.

In the near future there should be more videos like this for NBU which will be shot and edited by me. The whole concept looks very interesting and challenging, so I am looking forward to the next assignments. Here is the video itself:

The first day, when the qualifications took place, I could not make it because I decided to take a day off and go skiing at Rila lakes, but as I understood later I haven’t missed much. Not that there was anything wrong with the competition, just that there has been a lot of fog which would have made photographing the event very hard and with not very good results. I went to Skakavitsa hut in Saturday evening so I could be up at the icefall first thing in Sunday morning. Thanks to the organizers there was a fixed rope for me which I could use to climb up and down to photograph the climbing on the final route. The weather was perfect – sunny, quiet and not too cold.

After spending a few hours hanging on the rope here are the results. Hope you enjoy the photos: